


i, the least difficult of men

by patrokla



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Declarations Of Love, Episode: s03e07 The Red Queen, F/M, M/M, Possibly Unrequited Love, Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-05
Updated: 2019-01-05
Packaged: 2019-10-04 17:57:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17309216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patrokla/pseuds/patrokla
Summary: Ed tells Oswald about Isabella. Oswald handles it poorly.





	i, the least difficult of men

**Author's Note:**

> Title adapted from Frank O'Hara's "Meditations in an Emergency" (my apologies, Mr. O'Hara). 
> 
> I've been watching Gotham and was surprised that Oswald showed any restraint at all when Ed told him about Isabella. Here's a slightly canon divergent take on that scene.

“I feared the worst,” Oswald said, words muffled against Ed’s shirt. God, he’d been worried. Ed is publicly attached to Oswald; anyone with a grudge against Gotham’s new mayor could’ve gone after him and -  
  
Best not to think on that. Ed is fine, he’s here, safe and warm with his arms wrapped around Oswald.  
  
“I’m sorry,” Ed apologizes, “I completely lost track of time. I went to go pick up a bottle of wine and then…”  
  
“And then?” Oswald pulls away from their embrace enough so he can look up at Ed’s wonderful face.  
  
“It’s going to sound strange, but - I fell in love!”  
  
“ _What_!” Oswald snaps, jerking away from Ed entirely. “How? With whom?”  
  
“Her name is Isabella,” Ed begins, and Oswald feels as though Ed had been attacked by someone after all.  
  
He stands there, trembling with shock and pain, his bad leg aching fiercely from the night he’d spent sitting at the dining table. There has to be a way to fix this. Maybe Ed is imagining things. Maybe this woman, this _Isabella_ , isn’t even interested in him. Or maybe Ed is only infatuated because he doesn’t know that Oswald is right there, in love with him.  
  
“I love you,” Oswald says, interrupting whatever nonsense Ed was saying about Isabella’s sense of humor. “I’m in love with you.”  
  
Ed stares at him.  
  
“So you can forget all about this Isabella person,” Oswald tells him, “because you don’t need her. You have me.”  
  
Ed continues to stare at him, and Oswald’s nerves begin to turn into dread.  
  
“Well?” he demands, wishing he’d grabbed his cane.  
  
“Oswald,” Ed says, after a unbearably long moment, “It’s not that I don’t care for you, but what I feel for Isabella is different. It’s powerful, it’s - inspiring.”  
  
“No,” Oswald says, shaking his head, “No, you love me. I love you, and you love me. Don’t you love me?”  
  
“It’s not the same,” Ed says, his precision damning.  
  
“Oh, fuck you,” Oswald snaps, shocking Ed, “It’s the same. You just don’t want to admit it.”  
  
“Oswald, I care very deeply about Isabella,” Ed says seriously, “This will sound childish and sentimental, but I think she may be 'the one.'”  
  
“Get out!” Oswald shrieks, thoroughly incensed by this remark. “Get out of here, before I have you thrown out of a window.”  
  
“You wouldn’t,” Ed says, infuriatingly certain, and Oswald glares up at the ceiling.  
  
“No,” he admits, “I wouldn’t. Unlike you, I don’t kill the people I love.”  
  
He hears Ed breathe in sharply, and looks back down just in time to see him spin around and walk out of the room. He doesn’t slam the door as he leaves. Oswald almost wishes he had.  
  
Exhausted and heartbroken, he collapses in the nearest chair. His mind whirls with confusion and a growing fury that Ed would throw Oswald’s love back in his face. It’s not enough to change his feelings for Ed, no; his mother was tragically right. People get one true love, and Oswald has finally found his.  
  
Ed was right, too. Oswald would never hurt him, not seriously. But he has no such feelings towards Isabella.  
  
As the sun rises over Gotham, the city’s mayor sits in a dark room, and plots his next move. He _will_ win Ed back, by whatever means necessary. He expects that those means will be bloody.


End file.
